11 February, 2008

Christa Wolf

Two books by the East German writer Christa Wolf: Accident and The quest for Christa T. I love her drifting, stream of consciousness style: it's very similar to the way my own thought patterns work, and I find myself becoming slightly hypnotised by the writing. I also like her sense of history: The quest for Christa T. is in part about the generation who grew up during the Nazi period, and the reader is always aware of that without Wolf overtly mentioning it much. Accident is an odd, very short stream of consciousness novel: the narrator goes about her day as her brother undergoes brain surgery, and, at the same time, one of the reactors in Chernobyl powers station is on fire. It's an odd little book but I really enjoyed it. [7] [8]